Generally, home appliances include washing machines, refrigerators, cooking devices, cleaners, and etc.
In the case of typical home appliances, remote controls or portable terminals have been used to remotely control the operation of the home appliances.
Korean patent application No. 10-2004-0080033 previously filed by the applicant sets forth a remote control device and method that may control home appliances in a remote place by using portable terminals.
The prior application sets forth a technology that in a remote control mode to control devices in a remote place, portable terminals output remote control signals for corresponding home appliances to be controlled, the remote control signals output from the portable terminals are amplified to certain levels by a relay and transmitted to the corresponding home appliances, and thus it is possible to remotely control home appliances by using the portable terminals.
According to the prior application, there is a need for a relay to communicate with the portable terminals. Also, communication between devices in a remote control process may fail. That is, there is a decrease in communication reliability.